Because of today’s environment, companies in St. Peters, Missouri depend on the internet. Reliable access to the web is the lifeblood of their company. The business functions of every company, whether it is a small organization or on the Fortune 500, from Fortune 500, depends on fast and reliable Internet access.
We will, in the months and years ahead, become more and more reliant on our access to The web.
The net is ubiquitous. From email to data sharing, archiving to commerce and VOIP to video chat, the web is everywhere. What do you need? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Metro Ethernet may be the thing you need. You may need Gigabit Internet. Does your company in St. Peters need one of these: 10 Meg Internet access, a 100 Meg access to The Internet point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Your business must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Why will you need the internet? Will you only be web surfing and emailing? Will real-time data connection with servers in the cloud be the primary use of the web? Perhaps you, in St. Peters, are hosting the data and remote places rely upon this.
What happens if you have an outage in your high-speed Internet? How will the downtime affect your company? Is the absence of uptime detrimental? These types of questions must be answered before you make purchase anything.
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed access to The web. When picking the correct broadband internet, balancing the costs and benefits to your organization is imperative. Don’t be distracted by terminology. While you may hear providers throw out words and phrases like:
… focus on what matters: what does your company need and what are the best services and solutions out there to meet those needs?
Workers for most companies in St. Peters, Missouri have some need to access the web during the course of their job. It may be needed for business research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be adequate. If you have 50 employees who are using the net simultaneously, you may need more.
You may not need as much high-speed access to The Internet if your employees work primarily on an intranet system with limited graphics and video. On the other hand, if your company requires that its employees download many documents or images and videos, Internet speed becomes more important.
Does your business regularly conduct backups? It is recommended that you do remote backups from every desk. If you are, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize the backup data to collect.
Google drive and DropBox are two popular sharing services. Are you using one of these or some other service that allows you to share files? This is how a file sharing service works: You save a file. Then the file is pushed to the cloud, and is then synchronized with other people’s computers. Enough bandwidth is required to support this function along with every other service.
Are you interested in high-speed company Internet? Depending on where you are located, you may want to look into the viability of gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet. They are almost always found in “lit buildings” in St. Peters that are already wired by a carrier. It may be shock you to know that installing high-speed access to The net may not be particularly expensive or inconvenient.
The introduction of Metro Ethernet into a new building can be quite costly. However, bringing that connection into office space within that building is usually less so. Did you know that obtaining high-speed Internet access with Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet can often take 30 days or less? Of course, this depends upon availability.
Does your company host its own servers? Does your company use the hosted servers to run data feeds, APIs or websites for offices or businesses located elsewhere? Maybe your company requires that dozens of satellite offices have access to a hosted application at your company main headquarters. Are you a retail chain hosting the POS system for 12, 000 stores? Are you a law firm hosting data for multiple office sites?
When data, programs, or information is hosted centrally, those outside your office must gain access. If the web connection is interrupted or fails, those people are unable to accomplish any work. Make sure that when you choose your intranet solution it is reliable enough to support your need for multiple and simultaneous connections for many different places.
If you have one office using the web, you may get by with a cable modem or a low- cost 10-megabyte circuit. Company headquarters should have high-speed access to The Internet such as gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit. While all offer high speeds, they also need to be capable of supporting multiple diverse connections. The support you need could not be provided by a cable modem.
In some situations, there is a high price to pay for bringing in an inexpensive circuit or cable modem. While the monthly rate is lower, the bandwidth is generally shared among other tenants. You may experience slow downs. For example, although you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty Meg connection, it can be difficult to maintain the maximum speed during busy times and peak hours. Only a certain amount of bandwidth may be available in a community. Many cable companies have limits on the amount they can deliver. The bandwidth branches off to the multiple buildings, offices and tenants within them. With a 30-megabyte connection, you may not get to that speed during the working day. Do you care if you only get 6 when you were set up to expect 30?
Some providers offer customers dedicated and guaranteed bandwidth. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. The full capacity of your circuit should be attainable during all hours regardless of neighboring buildings, people or offices.
Five Meg, ten Meg, fifty Meg and 100 Meg circuits of guaranteed bandwidth are available with Metro Ethernet. If you want to reach gigabit speeds from your company out to the net, you can by using a gigabit Internet provider.
In these scenarios, carriers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
Despite outstanding Internet bandwidth products offered by carriers in St. Peters, Missouri, circuits do go down. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
You may be a candidate for redundant circuits.
There are, in reality, two kinds of redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. This provides some protection when there are certain failures. Multiple circuits can help for example, when there is a physical line issue or a problem with a router port. If your carrier experiences a regional outage or you have a line broken outside of your building, you may lose the use of all of your circuits. There is some protection that comes with this but there is risk as well.
The second way to set up circuit redundancy is by using two different providers to bring in your circuits. For users and the public, you can make it look like you have one cohesive circuit. You can also make the connections act as a single circuit. You can do this with various advanced routers and IP address allocations. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy provides greater assurance, comfort and protection. When one carrier has a problem like an outage or some other failure, you have another one that works.
You should look for redundant circuits from carriers in St. Peters that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. Alternatively stated, try to have your circuits enter the building on different sides from one another. Ideally, the circuits will be going in different directions and toward various central company spaces or data centers. Having redundancy in different physical directions can protect you if there is a serious incident at a data center or some accident that causes a regional circuit issue.
The cost of dependable access to The net pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Contemplate these scenarios:
You are on a cable modem with the carrier providing circuits to 14 other tenants in your building. Any of these tenants may be taking many calls, conducting huge downloads or streaming video during your regular office hours. How will less available bandwidth affect your telephone calls? How will the caliber of the call be affected? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Inaudible (choppy) to your customers?
Your office may be the working center of an entire organization enterprise. The kind of business does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. Every single one of your offices, stores and sites rely on you and your primary Internet connection to retrieve data. Your circuit goes down, now what will happen? Is it simply an irritation or a catastrophe? Are your other offices able to do any work? Can they process transactions or new orders? Share essential data? Do you know what your organization needs? Be sure to fully understand your requirements. It will help you choose the correct solution. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all count on. Is an API utilized in your company so that your customers can access and communicate with your system? What if you have server problems and they are unable to connect to you? If you have repeated outages, how long will they remain a customer?
What if your organization could not function at all without the internet? Maybe your company relies on it completely. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. Your reps have no way of answering calls, if they even know they are coming in. Looks like you are now out of organization. For competent call centers that already use and understand the problems that can arise, is redundancy enough? Are your providers sufficiently reliable? Clear and reliable calls are essential. Does your carrier service consistently provide this?
Clearly, there are many choices. Your budget, as well as the needs of your company, will help drive your decisions. Essentially:
If you are a small business, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg Internet access circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. The availability of circuits and your location determine prices; speak with one of our engineers to learn what your best options are.
Mid sized companies with a single office in St. Peters, need higher speed access to The web. You may choose between gigabit Internet or Metro Ethernet. You may also look into other higher-speed Internet circuits. Multiple circuits utilizing multiple providers would, ideally, provide you with maximum redundancy. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, one 100-megabyte circuit may cost more than two smaller 50-megabyte circuits. To repeat, availability and prices vary. You need to speak with one of our experts to determine your options in your specific location.
Any company with more than one location suffers the greatest risk of problems. Redundancy is crucial. Having several providers would afford extra protection. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Take a careful look at Ethernet access services, Metro Ethernet providers and gigabit Internet providers. Research other high-speed access to The web circuit providers also and make an informed decision. The correct combination of providers and services can keep your business running smoothly and efficiently.
Companies such as these require the following: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet and point-to-point (PPP) high-speed Internet circuits. Redundant hardware and redundant circuits will, for these businesses, ensure the greatest uptime. Be sure the circuits are from different providers. The last thing you want is interruptions or slowdowns affecting your organization. You must provide enough bandwidth to avoid these pitfalls that sometimes occur during sudden usage spikes. Your circuits and hardware must be able to support a large number of fast and simultaneous connections.
The danger and risk of failing circuits is tremendous. So is the risk of having less bandwidth than you need. Your ideal single circuit or multiple circuits should stay within your budget while still meeting your demands. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. We’ll examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your business running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
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